Google Data Visualization Opens a New Web

The Google Visualization API is now open to any data source, as long as it is connected to the web. Previously only Google Spreadsheets could be used as a source. With the announcement, enterprise CRM provider Salesforce.com released tools for working with its data.

Given the enterprisey feel of this announcement, it’s easy to miss the big picture for the web. Google is encouraging companies to open up their data. The future of the web is one big mashup, but that requires every service to have an API. It helps to have Google encouraging that behavior.

When the Visualization API was first released, it looked like a replacement for Excel charts. Now it’s bringing these charts, and the data inside them, to the web at large.